What Influenced Stock Investment Decision During the COVID-19 Pandemic? Environment, Expectations, and Biases: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Diverse decisions and behavior of investors in stock markets under unforeseeable situations of the COVID-19 pandemic were influenced by environmental and psychological factors. This study aimed to identify the factors affecting individual investor decisions through a systematic review with a narrative synthesis. Scopus and ScienceDirect were academic databases used as sources of searched studies. The five included studies were correlational studies conducted through archival and survey data, and had a variety of study objectives. The risk of bias in the included studies assessment was presented through traffic light and summary plots. The analysis revealed that the COVID-19 cases, time spent on stock markets, expectations, and investor biases were the factors collaborating in influencing stock investment decisions in the ambiguous situations. The findings were interpretable that the four key factors had a role in perceiving, evaluating, and judging choices of stock investment. Implications of the findings will be shared with appropriate investment authorities in Thailand so as to reduce a degree of stock market volatility through issuing guidelines on investing in stocks under uncertainties and to researchers having the purpose of conducting the future study regarding investor decisions under the post-COVID-19 circumstances.